Scott Shalaway Results

Recovering an endangered species requires legal protection, habitat, motivated staff, funding and time. Sometimes it can take decades for a species to recover. When a species has an extended reproductive period and breeds only once each year, time will be the limiting factor in the species’ recovery. Consider, for example, bald eagles in Pennsylvania. In […]

Summer time is insect time. Unfortunately, stinging and biting species such as wasps and mosquitoes get most of our attention for all the wrong reasons. Many insects are beneficial, and most are benign. My favorite summer insects are hummingbird moths. I know they have begun to emerge because digital images from readers arrive almost daily. […]

A few weeks ago I wrote about snakes and why they’re good to have around. I urged readers to protect them rather than kill them on sight. I expected a fury of letters from snake haters. I was pleasantly surprised to get no such mail. This is the first time I’ve written about snakes that […]

It’s not often I devote an entire column to a single new book, but The Warbler Guide, by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle (2013, Princeton University Press, $29.95, to be published July 24) deserves such attention. At 560 pages, The Warbler Guide thoroughly covers all 56 species of North American warblers. The first 137 pages […]

The best of summer comes from the garden or a roadside produce stand; the worst lurks in our backyards. My favorite summer garden foods are watermelon, cantaloupe and sweet corn. Explorers introduced melons to North America in the 16th century. Watermelons originated in Africa; cantaloupes came from Persia. A perfect watermelon is ripe, sweet, and […]

Last week my wife informed me she had seen the first big black rat snake of the year stretched across the road in front of our house. “What are you going to do about it?” she asked/demanded. I answered as I always do: “Nothing. I’m not about to kill a snake simply because it has […]

At 5 a.m. May 19 I awoke abruptly to a loud sound just outside the bedroom door. As the cobwebs cleared my mind, I realized I was hearing a whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will Having heard whip-poor-wills only five times over the last 25 years, I thought perhaps I had set my bird alarm clock to wake me […]

Last week’s column about ticks drew a quick response from many readers, including a great tip about a simple, inexpensive tool to remove engorged ticks. Rod Groomes, M.D., director of the emergency department at Armstrong County Memorial Hospital in Kittanning, Pa. for 27 year, wrote, “I’m an ER doc in rural Pennsylvania, and I have […]

If personal experience and reader reports are reliable indicators, this summer could be a bad one for ticks and Lyme disease. Since early April, I’ve removed countless ticks from my clothing, and several have been attached at the base of the hairline on my neck. Likewise, I’ve heard from many readers since late winter who […]